[Column] Fake Electronic Parts Invading Growing Markets

Apr 22, 2010 16:31 Masahide Kimura, Nikkei Electronics

The other day, I had an opportunity to gather information about counterfeit products (semiconductors and electronic parts that look like products of famous manufacturers).

Well, I am not sure if I can call them electronic parts, but there is an increasing number of counterfeit photovoltaic (PV) cell modules. For example, the custom office in Germany seized about 12t of counterfeit PV cell modules in March 2010. Their total value was 370,000 euros (approx US$496,873). The modules were made in China.

"Recently, there is an increasing number of cases where cheap PV cell modules manufactured in China are disguised with the labels of famous manufactures and sold at high prices," said TUV Rheinland, a Germany-based firm that offers a service to certify PV cells, etc. "Some of such fake PV cells break in a year even though there is a guarantee of 25 years."

According to a document that the European office of Sharp Corp publicized for its customers in July 2009, there is a counterfeit product of Sharp's monocrystalline silicon PV cell module, "NU-SOE3E." While a rubber sealing material is used for the genuine module, a material that looks like silicone resin is used for the counterfeit product.

Some pointed out that makers of counterfeit products are carefully checking markets. And products for which demands are rapidly growing, such as PV cells, become their first targets.

In the case of semiconductor products, they tend to copy products for which demands cannot be met by supply or which cannot be easily purchased from legitimate sales channels due to, for example, production stoppage. Others pointed out that the number of counterfeit LED-related products will increase from now on.

Fake products designed for intelligence, terrorist purposes

I think the purpose of most of the counterfeit product makers is to earn money. But some of the fake products are used for intelligence or terrorist purposes. For example, there are counterfeit products that collect certain information like Trojan horse programs or shut down a system when embedded in the system of an army or a bank.

If those fake products creep into the markets for electric vehicles, smart grids, medical devices and other markets that are expected to grow rapidly, they will pose an enormous risk.

Of course, various technologies to find counterfeit products are currently being developed to prevent such cases from occurring. For example, there is an international movement to standardize a technology to read an ID assigned to a part and judge whether the part is counterfeited via the Internet.

By the way, the information about counterfeit products usually does not come out. In fact, many companies declined to talk about their cases, saying that they do not want to damage their images.

On the other hand, other companies including parts makers and trading companies gave me valuable information on condition of anonymity, saying that they are really being troubled by fake products. I want to take this opportunity to thank them.

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